


Repair, Reconcile

by Namesake



Series: Dying is Easy, Recovering's Harder [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Gives Great Advice, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7381036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Namesake/pseuds/Namesake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to the Arm</p><p>Turns out, Tony's BARF tech isn't nearly as simple as Bucky first thought. The road to his recovery is a long and bumpy one, but with Steve at his side, Sam and Wanda's help and the promise of a new arm by the end of it all, he thinks he can manage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Machine

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to a one-shot I wrote a few months ago entitled 'The Arm' - if you want to read it go ahead, although it isn't imperative for your understanding of the story.
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for the support and to everyone who read the Arm and to everyone who will read this new and old readers alike. Your kind words and kudos made this possible, and I hope you'll continue to fuel this project with the same support. 
> 
> Until the next chapter! x
> 
> NOTE: There are a few comic book references here and there, but some facts will be warped slightly to fit the story.

The Asset didn’t know where he was.

He wasn’t afraid.

Locations would be uploaded to the data port soon enough so long as they were necessary for the mission. Places of interest, back roads, zip codes, extraction points. He didn’t remember how he knew that - old missions were generally static between his ears - but he did. The machine would take away his old orders and replace them with a new imperative. That much was clear to him.

He was in the chair.

He wasn’t afraid.

He didn’t remember getting there, but he remembered the chair. The feel of it.

It should be different, the Asset thought, considering all the places he’d woken up in the past. Norway, Russia, Germany, he remembered that. _How did he remember that?_

The chair should be different. It was large and clumsy, but they insisted on moving it around along with a handful of other Hydra tech. Toys that couldn’t be replaced or remanufactured. Precious tech. The chair was precious.

The cryo-tubes were shifted too, but Hydra always had a few handy on sight. Hydra’s tentacles stretched far and wide, they had the resources to spare.

The Asset didn’t know where he was.

He wasn’t afraid.

The room was standard, dark, damp. He could feel an electric buzz in the air, the hairs on his arm prickled. The machine was close by, maybe only a few feet.

The Asset wanted to run. He thought he should. Something told him that he should be running. But his mind was sluggish, a cocktail of drugs drip, drip, dripping through his blood. He could feel the cold steel of the standard clamps around his arms, _the Arm_ , his legs.

The Arm whirred automatically, assessing the strength of its restraints, checking for inconsistencies within the construction of the metal. Vulnerabilities.

There was nothing.

He was- _wasn’t_ afraid.

The prickling got harsher. The Asset could feel the currents in the air, they shot into his skin like millions of microscopic needles. He could smell ozone. His nostrils burned.

_Afraid?_

The Asset gritted his teeth, clenching his fingers so hard that he was sure the bones would shatter inside his skin. He bowed his head. He wanted it to be over, he wanted it to end.

Then the machine activated and he no longer wanted anything at all.

It was a blessing, perhaps, that he didn’t remember the pain.

When the machine finally receded from the Asset’s skull with a dull, perfunctory whirr, his throat ached from screams he couldn’t remember. His mouth tasted like rubber. His head hurt – throbbing along to the pounding of his heart - but it was clear. A blank canvass ready to be painted.

But the paint came later. First the artist must sign their work. How else were people to know who it belonged to? How else would the art know who to obey?

Art, _Asset._ He wasn’t art. He was no masterpiece. The Asset was code. A network of messages and commands. Data. Stored. Compliant.

He didn’t want to comply. The Asset had no memory, but he felt the pain in his head, the clamps on his flesh. He didn’t need memories to know that he was a prisoner.

“желание.”

A voice, from seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once. It echoed around the room - _Basement? Tunnel?_ It smelt like undergrowth. Cold and damp, the brickwork laced with mould.

The Asset spoke Russian, but his mind translated the word into English without a second’s hesitation.

_Longing._

The Asset cringed, writhing under his shackles. He didn’t remember pain, but he remembered punishment. Ice crept up his back as the word lodged itself into his brain. It hurt. It fucking _burned._

The voice continued, relentless: “ржaвый.”

_Rusted._

The Asset closed his eyes, trying to block the sound. The words were intrusive, burrowing deep into his subconscious. Opening doors he didn’t know were there. That shouldn’t be there.

_Why were they there?_

“семнадцать.”

The Asset gasped. He couldn’t breathe. His mind screamed _Seventeen._

The Asset could see the man behind the voice now; he popped into the Asset’s line of sight like an apparition, lank and spindly, a pair of oversized glasses worn crookedly over his nose. He wore a spotless lab coat. No mess. It was ridiculous to think that such a pathetic husk of a man was capable of dealing such critical damage. The Asset would have laughed had he not been in so much pain.

The man wasn’t a field worker, he was barely a handler. But he had the book. That red star bound in leather told the Asset everything he needed, without knowing how.

The Asset squinted through the pain in his head, the words searing imprints into his skull. It wouldn’t be long now… before they burned _him_ out and put the Soldier back in.

_Soldat?_

готовы соблюдать

_Gotovy soblyudat'_

**_READY TO COMPLY_ **

He wasn’t ready.

“рассвет.”

_Daybreak._

_Fuck._

He was never ready.

“Печь.”

_Furnace._

He felt sick.

He needed to resist. It was important. If he resisted he could…

He could…

“девять.”

_Nine._

What could he do?

What was the point?

He had nowhere to go. He had no one.

“Доброкачественный.”

_Benign._

He _was_ no one.

“возвращение на родину.”

_Homecoming._

No home. No _one_. He was a ghost.

_Soldat?_

_Gotovy soblyudat'_

**_READY TO COMPLY_ **

No, not yet goddamnit. He still had time.

“Один.”

_One._

Time for what?

He had time for… for…

Time for what?

Time for…

He was supposed to resist. It was important.

He needed to remember.

_Remember what?_

He was no one.

He had no one.

His time was up.

Time for _what?_

_Soldat?_

“Get him out. _Now._ ”

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky jerked forwards so violently that he very nearly fell from the chair he was sat on.

It didn’t matter, because the next minute he was crumpled on his knees anyway, retching up everything his stomach contents could offer all over the floor.

It wasn’t much, thank God. T’Challa still had him on the fucking _mystery smoothie_ diet. He’d been told his stomach needed time to ‘readjust’ after spending roughly ten months in cryo sleep. Not that it mattered, Bucky’s stomach couldn’t handle much these days. Especially not this fucking treatment.

His head throbbed, his scalp stung. That one ferocious movement from the chair had felt as though a tangle of cords and pipes had been yanked from the back of his skull, making mush of his brain.

Bucky retched again, his one good arm gripping uselessly into the white tile. He was shaking, but that was normal. He’d done this three times now; this was no different from the last two.

No wonder the fucking tech was called _BARF._

Bucky stared widely outwards at nothing in particular. He could feel his heart pounding, his breath catching inside his chest. His vision was a sea of red mist, unfocused and wild, pooling into his mind like a thick fog. It pushed at his thoughts, tugging them from the front of his mind. He felt them fade. He hated that feeling.

Bucky was distantly aware of a door being forced open somewhere nearby, followed by a set of heavy footsteps that could have been cat-like under the right motivation. Of course, this was no time for stealth.

Bucky could hear another set closely behind the first, but they weren’t his priority. He could feel the red mist clearing, but it still lingered on the periphery of his vision, soothing the headache to background noise. The mist had a message, a clear instruction. _Focus_. Focus on something other than the memories. Other than the Soldier.

“Captain Rogers, please, I could very easily manage-”

“Thank you, but like every other time, T’Challa, I need to do this myself.”

Bucky’s breath evened as he closed his eyes. The red mist left him in one drawn exhale. A word formed around that exhale, quiet, but obvious. A word that sounded very much like _Steve._

“It didn’t work,” a lightly accented voice said. She was stating the obvious, but Bucky supposed the others hadn’t just received a front-row seat to his memories. They didn’t know just how badly he’d fucked up. Again.

“Wanda,” Bucky gritted, clenching his fist against the tile. The room spun dangerously around him as he nodded carefully. “Thank you.”

An image of Wanda’s face, gaunt and guarded, appeared in his mind. Her lips curled as she nodded back. Out loud she said, “You don’t have to say that every time.”

Hah. Yeah. She could tell him that all she wanted, maybe one day it’d stick, but it wasn’t likely.

“Wanda, you can go back inside if you want.” That was Steve’s voice.

“I’m not leaving,” Wanda said. Just like every day. Bucky nearly smiled. The kid had heart.

Bucky felt a hand take his shoulder. The flesh one, ‘cause no one dared touch the metal stump if they could help it.

“What’s your name?” Steve asked, his voice guarded. Bucky felt Steve’s fingers dig tighter into his arm.

“Bucky,” Bucky said, trying his best to focus on Steve’s touch and very little else.

“Gonna need more than that, pal.”

Bucky snorted. Of course he did. “Alright, James Buchanan Barnes. Born March tenth, nineteen seventeen.” Bucky grinned despite himself. “Lemme see, ninety nine years old, but lookin’ good. Serial number: three, two, five, five, seven, oh, three, eight. Current status: pretty damn fucked up.” Bucky glanced upwards, his vision spiralling. “That all?”

Steve squeezed his shoulder. “How you feeling?”

“Status didn’t cover it?”

“Buck.”

Bucky shrugged his one good shoulder. “It didn’t work.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Yeah, he knew that. “Just gemme off the floor before this vomit smell makes me sick all over again,” Bucky muttered, rolling his shoulder against Steve’s hand. After a few tense seconds, Steve relented, sliding his arm gently around Bucky’s back, offering him the best chance he had at not tripping face first into his own vomit.

Bucky appreciated that.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky stared apprehensively through the observation room’s one sided glass. It overlooked a small, white tiled room. It was clean now, no vomit in sight.

The room didn’t have much in it, just a single chair at its centre. In Bucky’s head, that chair had been a perfect carbon copy of _the_ chair. But here, in reality, it was just a standard metal contraption. No arm restraints, no leather. Just a chair.

The illusion had melted away like sodden tissue paper the second Wanda had pulled him out, but it didn’t stop Bucky from seeing every detail of that tunnel every time he so much as blinked. Hydra bases were always so dark, so cold - a bi-product of setting up underground or inside some kind of abandoned warehouse.

Hydra really was reptilian at its core, hiding beneath the surface of the earth, relishing in the sewage of its prey. Bucky looked away, the musty scent of that tunnel still clung to his nostrils, making him nauseous all over again.

Instead, he reached up with his only hand and pressed his fingers against the device on his ear. It was relatively small, built like a businessman’s earpiece. Maybe because it was designed by a businessman.

Bucky didn’t understand half of what it did, but how T’Challa had explained it, it targeted the hippocampus – the memory centre of the brain. It took his traumatic memories and brought them to the surface, forcing him to relive them in a manner where he was given the chance to change their outcome. He had control inside his head, like experiencing a lucid dream. He could _stop_ them from controlling him.

Yeah, it _could_ , if _he_ could.

Bucky smiled ruefully at the white tiled room. T’Challa had made it special, designed it so it’d give just enough sensory triggers to pull Bucky back into _the_ chair. Wanda did the rest, guided his head to the right memories, then she just watched, made sure he never got too far into his own mind. If he heard that last trigger word, there was no telling what he’d do when he snapped outta it. Last time it had taken getting his head caved in by a helicopter’s windshield to break the spell; he didn’t want to have to go through that every time they tried to make a breakthrough. Mostly, he didn’t want to put Steve through that.

The sound of the door opening brought Bucky’s attention back to the present. He half turned his head, only relaxing when he saw Steve in the doorway.

Steve was wearing civilian clothes, just like every rag-tag vigilante T’Challa was currently harbouring. His hair was mussed slightly, his eyes bruised with exhaustion. Bucky felt a pang of guilt clench his stomach.

Steve had been supporting him through this ordeal for over a week now; during all the prepping, all the medical reviews, right down to when Bucky had been put into the chair for the first time. Wanda might have been the only one who was allowed in the room when the procedure started, but Steve had been as close to Bucky as T’Challa’s legion of scientists would allow. He was always first on the scene when Bucky came out of it too. Not like it ever ended with something to celebrate about. In fact, the first time he’d been pulled out, Bucky had puked all over Steve’s shoes. He still felt shitty about that.

“Hey,” Steve said, closing the door behind him. “How you feeling?”

Bucky shrugged his good shoulder.

Steve was next to him in the time it took for Bucky to turn away. They stood together in respectable silence, staring through the one-sided glass. Bucky tried to pretend the room didn’t keep phasing between decades of Hydra cells before his eyes, but it didn’t fool Steve.

Bucky felt a warm hand fit against the small of his back. He closed his eyes, letting the feel of Steve cloud some of his old memories.

“It’ll work, Buck,” Steve said suddenly, staring resolutely through the window. “You just gotta give it time.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said dismally. “Third time’s the charm, huh? Oh, wait.”

Steve moved his hand to Bucky’s waist, drawing the two closer. “You said it yourself, this was never gonna be easy.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Quit using my own words against me.”

“I will when you quit making sense.”

“Hah.” Bucky pressed his cheek into Steve’s shoulder. He wanted to close his eyes, fall asleep stood up like a fucking horse and forget about the rest of the world for a while, but he was too wired. Adrenaline fuelled his blood, leftover from the horrible things he’d experienced inside his own head. But it wasn’t _just_ him that experienced them anymore, not with Wanda…

Goddamn, Wanda Maximoff. He barely knew the kid. She was what the big wigs today were calling _enhanced;_ she’d fought on Steve’s side against Stark and the Accords. She’d saved Bucky’s life. She was _continuing_ to save him and she was just a _kid._ Bucky thought that the war had ended when he’d been made into a pawn for Hydra’s cause, but it turned out that it hadn’t, it’d just changed. Enlistment was still expected from anyone with the right kind of power, duty was the demand of every vigilante. Children, fighting a war all over again.

“The longer it takes, the longer she suffers,” Bucky muttered, turning his face into Steve’s arm.

“Wanda?”

Bucky’s lips twisted. “Who else?”

“She chose this,” Steve said steadily, “she volunteered.”

“Doesn’t mean she knew what she was getting into.” Bucky sighed, exasperated. “She’s been through Hell from what I’ve been told. Lost her family, lost her brother, she probably thought she’d been up shit creek enough that nothing else would faze her.” Bucky laughed bitterly. “Bet this was a surprise.”

Steve shook his head. “She’s strong, Buck, stronger than you know.”

“Yeah, but she’s a _kid,_ Steve.”

“I know that.”

“Then quit acting like it’s okay!”

“I’m not!” Steve pulled away, running a hand through his hair. “Christ, Buck, none of this is okay, but that doesn’t mean we give up!”

Bucky blinked, recoiling. “I didn’t say-”

“But you wanted to.”

“No!” Bucky said, louder than he anticipated. Adrenaline churned inside his gut as he looked to Steve uncomprehendingly.

Ten months ago he’d been ready to give up on all of it, even the chances for a cure in favour of a dreamless, potentially endless rest. But today? After all they’d been through? - All they’d discussed? Steve knew that Bucky wanted this now. He had to. He _must_ know.

Bucky was fighting for this, not just for Steve, even if it might have started out that way. No, Bucky was fighting for himself, for the chance to be free, to feel comfortable inside his own skin. He didn’t want to waste away inside a cryo tube, and damn it, it fucking _hurt_ to hear Steve talk about him like that. Making the decision for him like it was so obvious. Like he was ready to give up. After _everything._ It was insulting.

Bucky tore the earpiece from his head, shoving it harshly into Steve’s chest. Steve’s fingers locked around it instinctively, his expression immediately softening into regret.

Bucky didn’t care, not now, not when he was this wired. His head was killing him, his heart was beating too hard and too fast inside his chest. Suddenly, the observation room felt way too overcrowded, like being under the eyes of twenty lab coats all at once.

Bucky shuddered as he turned on Steve, stalking towards the nearest exit. T’Challa had given him clearance on all but a few levels of the building and suddenly Bucky wanted nothing more than to exploit that for the chance to get as far away from everyone as possible.

“Buck,” Steve said, but Bucky had already slammed the door.

 

* * *

 

Bucky found his solace on one of the balconies that overlooked Wakanda’s expanse jungle.

On his first full day of being conscious in the building, Bucky had planned out the structure floor by floor, making a mental note of every possible exit, and every space that hardly ever saw personnel of any kind. The main balcony on the second floor was a popular smoking spot for medical and science staff. Military personnel preferred the third floor, but that was only because it was closest to the training rooms.

Bucky realised very quickly that the best chance at not running into anyone was to keep close to the living quarters. Every guest room had its own personal balcony, so it was rare to find anyone on the one that swung right on the corridor, poking its head out between an empty guest room and a stairwell that was in heavy disuse.

Bucky used the stairwell too. There was always a guard on duty in the elevator, an extra safety measure to ensure that no one ended up on a floor they didn’t have the clearance to be on. The stairwell had a key card slot instead, fused to the wall on each floor that went beyond Bucky’s hacking comprehension.

Despite the mechanical part of his mind - the part he still called the _Soldier –_ that liked the idea of a challenge, to gather intel on all departments whether he had orders to be there or not, Bucky dismissed it. He highly doubted he’d be punished the way Hydra had when he’d disobeyed orders, but he didn’t want to take the risk. Not when he was receiving enough pain through measures he’d given his full consent over already.

The balcony was of substantial size, jutting out about ten feet and decorated with black steel bars. The balcony areas were one of the few spots that weren’t entirely encased in bullet proof glass, though another key card was needed just to get outside. T’Challa had entrusted Bucky with one, though he didn’t doubt that there were cameras in place for ‘his protection’.

Bucky gripped the metal bar with his hand, squeezing it loosely as Wakanda’s humid air washed over him. He soaked in the feel of the outside world for a few more seconds before digging into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes he kept there.

Smoking was a good habit for him, not like many people this decade would agree. It didn’t matter; Bucky doubted they’d do the same damage to him as they’d do to someone without super soldier serum running through their veins anyway. A hundred cigarettes down his throat and he’d still run laps around Wilson, and honestly, that was all that mattered. He grinned around his cigarette as he slipped it between his lips, though he damn-near bit through it when he heard the screen doors slide open behind him.

“You know, those things probably won’t kill you.”

Bucky relaxed minutely, casting his gaze towards the jungle. Speaking of the Devil…

Sam Wilson was stood in the doorway. It was so typical of Steve to bring back-up for his back-up. As if Wanda wasn’t enough, Sam was along for the ride too. For what, Bucky wasn’t sure yet; he wasn’t sure he even cared.

“What d’you care?” he asked, digging in his pocket for his lighter.

Sam shrugged, folding his arms. “It’s for the stress, right? I doubt you get a kick from the nicotine the way you’re built. It’s more about the feel of it, the excuse to get outside.”

Bucky produced his lighter, flicking it once, twice, three times before the flame ignited. Sam was only half right, not that Bucky had the mental energy to waste filling him in on the details.

The old Bucky… nineteen forties Bucky… _Steve’s_ Bucky, he’d used to smoke. Never around Steve, God no, he’d have sooner gone to Hell than expose Steve’s asthmatic ass to the butt of his cigarette. Still, if he’d had a particularly hard day, working extra jobs, feeling the weight of the world was gonna crash and burn on his shoulders, he’d retreat to the fire escape. Take a few drags. Be at peace with the world for a few precious moments before reality kicked in again.

He’d smoked during the war, too. Steve hadn’t, probably muscle memory telling him not to. The same memory that had kept Bucky from lighting one within ten feet of the punk.

The Asset hadn’t smoked. Hadn’t been given the choice to. The Asset never had a choice, but Bucky did. He might not be the same man from seventy years ago, but he still had a choice and to Hell with it, it still felt damned good to have a cigarette between his fingers.

Bucky only glared in response, exhaling smoke through his nose. “Like you care.”

“Whoa, man, that’s harsh,” Sam said, a little more sternly than Bucky had anticipated. “Just ‘cause I- look, you’re Steve’s pain in the ass, right? Which makes you my pain in the ass by default.” Sam shrugged again. It was becoming a disturbingly familiar habit. “We’re practically family.”

Bucky nearly choked around his next drag. “I don’t-”

“You don’t what? Have a family?” Sam’s eyebrow raised. “Now both of us know that’s bullshit.”

Bucky sighed, shaking his head. “You here on Steve’s behalf?”

“Nah, I don’t pick sides,” Sam said, grinning, “not for shit like this, at least.” He considered something before adding: “I talked him down from coming to find you. I figure you’ve got about ten minutes.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, flicking ash from the balcony’s edge. “You’re right about one thing,” he said, slipping the cigarette back between his lips. “It’s definitely for the stress.”

Sam laughed – a silent chuckle mostly through his nose – and relaxed against the door. Bucky ignored the irritated prickle on his skin that only close proximity to other people gave him and instead focused his gaze on the endless jungle ahead of him.

They stayed like that in peaceful silence until Bucky was sucking down the last dregs of his cigarette. He wasn’t ready to go in just yet and quietly thumbed out another from the pack, keeping the smoking stump of his current one hanging from his lips. He dropped it from his mouth the second he had the new one between his fingers, crushing the ash into the concrete with the toe of his boot. It was oddly therapeutic.

Sam cleared his throat. Bucky ignored it.

“Where were you this time?”

The question caused Bucky to pause. He turned to regard Sam, automatically scanning him for inconsistences within his demeanour. Questions were rarely sounded out so blatantly to him, in fact, they were usually masked in the form of an interrogation. Sam had asked his question as though he was asking about something as common as the weather. Like he was expecting an answer, but he wasn’t bothered about whether he got it or not. Bucky’s lip curled.

“Hydra base, as usual,” Bucky said, testing the water.

Sam snorted. “Figured as much. But I also figure Wanda takes you back to different places each time. So, where were you this time?”

Bucky lit his new cigarette, basking in the feel of toxic smoke winding through his lungs. God, he could almost hear Steve tutting. He shrugged. “Madripoor, nineteen fifty six.” His lips curled around his cigarette. “Wanna know who I killed?”

Sam shrugged impassively. “Only if you wanna tell me.”

Bucky took that as a challenge. “British Ambassador by the name of Dalton Graines.” He’d been telling the truth when he’d told Stark he remembered every kill.

It was eerie how clear the missions were in his head now. The machine’s work unfurled a little of its veil every day, turning Bucky’s short term memory to shit and a lot of his childhood into incomprehensible noise. But the things the machine had taken deliberately… the things it had taken to protect the Asset from a gnawing guilt that would have eventually ended in his deactivation, _those_ were the things that came back crystal clear. Bucky grimaced. It was a sick kinda irony if he’d ever heard of it.

Bucky took another drag as he thought back to the kill. The Asset had killed big wigs before, groups of them at a time in fact, but this Ambassador had been a pain in his ass.

The guy had been at some kind of gala event to celebrate the New Years; too many faces, too many hands being shaken. The Asset hadn’t had a clear shot from his sniper. Still, the mission imperative had been clear, so he’d made the shot. Six times. He’d taken out the people in the Ambassador’s vicinity, then taken him out. The panic hadn’t even started ‘til old Graines had been bleeding out into the expensive Persian rug. Champagne glasses broke, people screamed, and the Asset had been a ghost on the road before the cops could even start gathering info. He’d never been caught. Never been found. Hydra was very thorough.

Bucky tapped his cigarette with his thumb, a clump of ash falling to the concrete.  “They’d called it _acceptable collateral damage_. I killed maybe six people that night. Only one of them was a target.” He blinked, unsure of himself. The memory was clear, and it ate him alive to know that he’d done it, but at the same time, there was a part of him that felt disconnected from it. From everything the Soldier had done. They were these two entities, two parts of the same body, the same mind, but different. Thoughts and actions often bled into each other, but still, as Bucky thought about the massacre, he didn’t so much as shudder. All he could feel was a cold pit inside his stomach, swallowing his emotions whole.

Sam watched him the whole time, unmoving. He was probably waiting for him to snap, maybe even cry. Bucky had done enough crying to serve a lifetime, and as for snapping? God, he just didn’t have the energy.

At least the smokes had done their job. Whatever adrenaline he had left inside of him was well and truly spent.

“You know if you ever want to talk about this properly-”

And there it was. Clarification on why Sam was here wrapped in a neat bow. Bucky killed the last of his cigarette, turning to face the ex-Avenger. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said, taking a step towards the door.

Sam didn’t step out of his way immediately; instead he gave him a look that Bucky couldn’t quite decipher. Sam made a clicking sound with his tongue before taking a step back into the hallway. “Look you might have thrown my ass off a hellicarrier-”

Bucky frowned. “That wasn’t-”

“I know.” Sam raised his hands, smiling lopsidedly. “Dude, I know how it went, doesn’t mean I won’t give you Hell for it though, I’m sure you understand.”

Bucky only rolled his eyes.

Sam clapped a hand on his back, right around the metal shoulder. “Look, all I’m saying is, shit like this eats at you, and I doubt this stuff gets discussed over your pillow talk with Steve.”

That made Bucky blush, Sam snorted. He patted his back before retracting his arm. “Just keep it in mind, alright?”

Bucky frowned, but nodded. He wasn’t sure what to make of Sam Wilson. He spoke his mind, that was for sure and he didn’t seem afraid of anyone, their past be damned. He was… sincere though, in a way, and he didn’t hide anything. After seventy years of spy work, that was a damned Godsend.

Bucky made a move to leave, but Sam called out to him again, causing him to stop.

“One more thing,” Sam said, making a theatrical roll of his eyes. “I know I said I wasn’t gonna get involved, but you know Steve didn’t mean anything by what he said, right? He loves you, man, he’s just not always that great about expressing it. ‘specially with everything that’s going on.”

Bucky’s lips quirked. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Yeah, you better.”

Bucky really did leave this time, waving offhandedly. “I’ll see you around, Sam.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky nearly stopped outside of Steve’s room.

T’Challa had provided rooms for all his harboured convicts, even though most of the time, Steve spent his nights with Bucky. On occasion, Bucky needed his own space and Steve accepted that with little word on the matter. It was one of the infinite things that made Bucky wonder how the fuck he’d been so lucky to get someone like Steve. Someone who was so endlessly patient, even at times when Bucky couldn’t stand being touched, let alone share his room.

Bucky nearly knocked on Steve’s door, but eventually, he pulled himself from the thought, trudging hazily to his own room.

The fight he’d had with Steve was bullshit and he knew it. Barely a graze in the grand scheme of things, but he felt shitty about it regardless.

The fact of the matter was simple. They’d spent a week working with Stark’s BARF tech with little to no positive results and they were both exhausted, frustrated and sometimes that ended up accumulating into argumentative behaviour. It didn’t matter what Bucky thought of it at the moment, anyway, because he was too tired to think straight about it.

A silver tray stacked with protein bars greeted Bucky as he entered his room. They’d been placed on the table by the window, with a note that read:

YOU HAVE BEEN UPGRADED TO SOLID FOOD, I HAVE INFORMED THE KITCHEN TO MAKE NOTE OF THIS ADVANCEMENT.

  * T’Challa



Bucky grinned despite himself. For a king, T’Challa wasn’t half bad. He tried to cater for everyone, even if ‘everyone’ included damaged ex-assassins with problematic eating habits. He’d not only extended his country to them, but his friendship as well. It was strange to feel cared for, especially by people who weren’t Steve. Bucky was still having trouble adjusting.

He’d just torn the wrapper of one of the bars off with his teeth when two solid knocks reverberated from the front door. They were familiar knocks, without a pattern, but music to Bucky’s ears all the same.

Bucky wasn’t surprised to find Steve on the other side of his door. He looked downtrodden, like a kicked puppy. Bucky leant his one good arm against the doorframe and waited.

“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,” Steve said immediately, his gaze locking with Bucky’s. “I crossed a line, I said something I should have never said, I knew it as soon as the words came out of my mouth… I-” Steve was struggling, Bucky could tell. “I’m so sorry, Buck, I should have never-”

“Shut up,” Bucky said, a half smile playing across his lips.

Steve blinked, unsure. “Buck-”

He sounded so helpless, so utterly lost. Bucky knew that because it was the same thing he felt every time he put Steve out of his way.

It was guilt, a horrible, churning guilt that clung to him like a parasite, reminding Bucky that he didn’t deserve someone like Steve, not after everything he’d done. A guilt that whispered to him at night, taunting him that one day Steve just wouldn’t be able to handle him anymore. Maybe that’s why Bucky had left the observation room when he had. Not because he was angry, but because he’d been afraid, afraid that Steve had finally given up on him, finally admitted to himself that he was a lost cause.

“C’mere,” Bucky said, grabbing Steve by the shoulder.

Steve walked into his embrace willingly. His face found solace in Bucky’s flesh shoulder as he let out a stricken breath against Bucky’s chest. Steve’s arms tightened around Bucky, a sensation that would have felt constricting had it come from anyone else. Bucky wrapped his arm around Steve’s back, rubbing comforting circles through the fabric of his shirt.

“I’m not mad,” Bucky said quietly as Steve’s breathing hitched again.

“You should be,” Steve said, quieter still. His face was still buried, but Bucky could hear his voice, could feel the vibration of it against his flesh. “I- Buck, what I said wasn’t right. I didn’t mean it, I was just tired, and I thought… I was so _afraid_ that you were gonna-”

Bucky’s heart clenched. “Stevie-”

“That you were gonna leave me.”

There it was again. That moment of clarification.

Sometimes Bucky forgot just how much Steve depended on him. Despite _everything,_ despite all that he’d done, Steve was still willing to help him, because he loved him; just as much as Bucky loved Steve.

Steve had plunged a fucking jet into the ocean and got his ass frozen for seventy years for the old Bucky, but even for this corrupted, mess of a second model, Steve had gone to war. He’d fought his own team to protect him. The man who couldn’t possibly deserve to be saved but was going to be anyway, because Steve Rogers said so. Because the star spangled man with a plan never gave up.

And he was _so_ afraid of losing Bucky, just as much as Bucky feared losing Steve.

“I ain’t going nowhere,” Bucky said, squeezing Steve closer against his chest. “Not without you.” He chuckled, pressing his lips against Steve’s neck. “You got me ‘til the end of the line, pal.”

That surfaced a strained chuckle from Steve’s lips. “How the Hell are you real?”

Yeah, Bucky struggled with that every day too. Out loud he said, “I am. That’s all you gotta know.”

They stayed in the doorway for a while longer. Bucky closed his eyes, supporting Steve as much as Steve was supporting him. They held a semblance of balance that way, keeping each other from toppling to the floor. Bucky felt every strained breath that passed through Steve’s chest and tried not to remember how, a long time ago, those kinda breaths had scared the life out of him.

Finally, Steve steadied, his grip growing lax around Bucky’s back. When he pulled away, his eyes were wet. Bucky buried the urge to hug him all over again.

Steve rubbed his eyes, turning his gaze towards the hallway. “I can still get outta your hair if you want-”

Bucky shook his head incredulously. Even after all this, somehow whatever Bucky needed still came first. He grabbed Steve again, pulling him over the threshold. “Get in here ya punk.”

Steve fell awkwardly against the wall as Bucky pushed the door closed. He turned on Steve then, pressing his arm into the wall by Steve’s shoulder, locking him in place. They held each other’s gazes for a moment, Steve’s blue eyes softening with every second that passed. All his fears and regrets were so plain to Bucky, it was a wonder to him how no one else seemed to see them. He closed the last few inches between them, running his lips gently along Steve’s neck.

A calm breath passed Steve’s lips as he relaxed against the wall, grabbing Bucky by the metal shoulder. Bucky grinned, chasing his lips further up Steve’s neck, down his jawline, until finally they were kissing, gently at first, but growing hungrier, harder, until Bucky was pressing them both into the wall. If T’Challa’s rooms hadn’t been built to survive a nuclear blast, Bucky was sure they would have ended up crashing through to the room beyond. As it was, there was probably irreparable damage to the plaster.

Bucky’s flingers clenched into the wall beside Steve as he drew away, breath heavy, eyes blown wide. He kissed Steve again on the chin before pressing their foreheads together. “I was gonna have a shower,” he whispered.

Steve let out a heavy breath of his own, face flushed. “Okay.”

Bucky’s lips curled. “You’re coming with me.”

Steve grinned. “Okay.”


	2. Rebellion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long and my only excuse is that I'm a mess of a human being that takes forever to get anything done. But here it is! Finally! ~Fuck~
> 
> Hopefully the next one will be ready a lot sooner. I hope you guys enjoy, and also thank you to everyone who's read, kudos'd and/or commented so far. You're all amazing. All of you. So thank you!

Bucky would have punched a hole in the wall had the Arm been functional.

He’d been in Algeria this time, 1956. Sent to kill the French Defence Minister, Jacques Dupuy. He remembered the orders, the faceless man with the same spindly body squawking instructions. He’d killed Dupuy in his own kitchen. Target eliminated with prejudice.

He remembered that now, now that he was out and breathing hard, fast, head splitting with rage. Back inside his mind he’d been pulled out seconds before that final trigger word. He’d tried to stop it, tried to find a way to fight it, but like every time before, he’d failed. The words ate into him, buried so deep inside his brain that it felt like to claw them out would have meant his suicide.

Bucky pounded the wall of the observation room with his flesh hand. It didn’t give, he didn’t expect it to in a building as advanced as this, but it still made him feel better. He could feel several fractures develop in his fingers. They’d heal quickly, but until then they’d hurt. Bucky smiled.

Steve had left him in the observation room to cool off, just like every day. Usually, Bucky just felt sick and disorientated, but the longer this went on, the more days he wasted not even making an inch of progress… he was putting too many people out of their way. Relying on practical strangers to fix him, relying on the patience of the one person he loved, a patience that wouldn’t waver, because it was _Steve._ God he was putting this all on Steve. He should be able to make it work, _why_ wasn’t it _working?_

Bucky stumbled back from the wall, afraid he’d strike it again. His metal shoulder ached for the first time in days, phantom pains extending to the exposed wires kept neat beneath a shock absorbing rubber sleeve. He itched to use it, but the new arm wouldn’t be fitted until he was sure his trigger words had been neutralised. He’d made T’Challa promise that.

He was starting to regret that promise.

God, Bucky hated this, _all_ of it – being unable to control his own mind. Every time he went under he thought he could do it, but then his eyes would snap open and he’d be in _the_ chair.

Bucky couldn’t seem to break free of the codes spoken to him from handlers throughout the ages because they’d been ingrained into the Asset, but that wasn’t true, not really. T’Challa had explained that if Bucky could dismantle just one instance in his mind where he refused the code words, a domino effect of other instances would follow. He’d be free.

Hah. Yeah. _Freedom._ Tell that to Steve and you’d be preaching to the choir, but for Bucky? God, if only it was that simple. If only it didn’t feel like glass shards were slicing through his brain every time he so much as thought of breaking through.

The door creaked open behind him, causing Bucky to turn. His hand clenched instinctively, he winced, the thought of Steve finding him this way racing uneasily through his mind.

Wanda Maximoff stood in the doorway, somewhat imposing for such a young girl. Her brown hair fell in loose waves across her shoulders, framing the gauntness of her features, the hollowness behind her eyes. She hadn’t spoken out much about her brief time in captivity, but everyone knew she’d been treated worse than the other Avengers. Steve had told Bucky that she’d shied away from his touch when he’d tried to help her remove her straight jacket. It made Bucky sick to think what the government would do to a child in the name of protecting their country.

His shoulders loosened the minute she entered, automatically shifting to a position that would seem the least menacing. It didn’t matter; Wanda had seen inside his head, she probably knew him better than he did at this point. All things considered, it wasn’t that hard.

“Why’re you here?” he asked.

Wanda shrugged, her gaze wandering idly across the room. “You didn’t thank me.”

Bucky’s lip quirked. “Thought you didn’t like that.”

Wanda smiled. “It grew on me.”

Bucky took a step back, watching as Wanda surveyed the room. She walked alongside the single desk that gathered dust at the back wall, running her fingers across the wood. Finally, her eyes fell upon the one sided glass. She moved towards it, her gaze unreadable.

“I don’t come in here often,” she explained quietly, folding her arms. “But the others do, don’t they?” She paused. “The king and Steve and Sam. They watch us from in here.” She pressed two of her fingers against the glass. “What must we look like?”

Bucky shrugged warily. “I try not to think about it.”

“I do too,” Wanda murmured. She pulled away from the window, looking to Bucky directly. “It’s hard not to though, isn’t it?”

Bucky frowned. “Why’d you really come here, Wanda?”

“You were angry today,” Wanda said, practically speaking over him. Bucky’s mouth snapped shut. A smile ghosted across Wanda’s lips. “That was new, you’re usually frustrated and tired and scared but you have never been angry before. Not like that.” Her head cocked to one side in thought. “I didn’t change that emotion, I try not to change anything, but it… it made me think.”

“Of?” Bucky prompted.

“Of what you want.”

Bucky blinked. Wanda was a cryptic person, it was to be expected from someone who could read minds, he supposed. Still, she often seemed to forget that other people couldn’t do the same. He decided to humour her. “What do I want?”

“What you’ve always wanted. To get better.” Wanda’s gaze drew distant again. “You can’t though. That’s why you’re angry, because whenever we try, it’s never enough, you can’t break it. I see it every time. Something stops you.” She blinked upwards, tapping the side of her head. “You stop yourself.”

Bucky snorted. “I’m not tryin’ to.”

“But the Soldier is,” Wanda explained. “The Soldier was taught to believe in Hydra. He was taught to believe that what he was doing was right.”

Bucky froze. For a chilling moment, he was locked in a bank vault with Alexander Pierce. Sat in _the_ chair, head aching, mind reeling, with one thought on his mind.

 _Your work has been a gift to mankind,_ Pierce had told him. _I need you to do it one more time._

Pierce had had a hypnotic way of speaking; the Asset had trusted him above his handlers, above the lab coats who’d controlled the machine. He’d spoken to Pierce. The Asset had rarely spoken to anyone, but he’d _spoken_ to him. He’d wanted to do good for Pierce. Bucky cringed at the thought. Like a haggard dog obeying an abusive owner, he’d grown so used to the pain that he’d ignored it in favour of small rewards. Words of praise. Scraps.

“Bucky?”

Bucky shuddered, the images fading as he regained his grip on reality. Wanda was watching him curiously. He doubted she’d looked into his mind, she was very careful with her gift – never extending it where it wasn’t wanted.

She’d called him _Bucky._

It was the name that he preferred, not that many people called him that. Most people would call him Barnes or, simply, nothing at all. He was still a sore subject for most people, a whispered name amongst colleagues. A ghost. But Wanda saw through all that, she had to considering how much time she spent sifting through his war zone of a memory.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, “I didn’t mean to take you back-”

“It’s okay,” Bucky said honestly. “Go on.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded.

Wanda pursed her lips. “The king told you that to make progress you must refuse your triggers, but inside of your head, the Soldier still consumes you… and he trusted his leadership. He might have questioned it at times, but he was brainwashed into believing that what he did was for a good cause.” Wanda shook her head, disgust wrinkling her features. “Hydra does that, it takes good people and it corrupts them, it tells them what they want to hear and makes them believe that they can use what they have been given for the right reasons.”

Bucky relaxed against the wall. “Tell me about it.”

A brutal smile twisted Wanda’s lips. “There was a time when my… my brother and I had thought we could use Hydra… an organisation that we should have hated for what they had done to our people, we should have hated them so _much._ ” She drew off, taking a shaky breath. “But our parents had been taken from us by what we had understood as a greater evil.” She shrugged, fiddling aimlessly with the sleeve of her shirt. “We thought that we could trick Hydra scientists into giving us the strength to fight back, but they had been in control of us every step of the way, we’d just let ourselves believe that they weren’t.”

Steve had told Bucky about the circumstances of Wanda’s powers. Still, hearing her explain it so coldly, so honestly… it made him realise just how much she and the Asset had in common.

The Asset had always been kept on a leash, but he had been brainwashed to truly believe in what he was doing - it was the only way that Hydra had been able to maintain their control. Similarly, Wanda and her brother – Pietro, Steve had told him – had believed that they could keep a pace ahead of Hydra’s regime, to gain power from their pursuits, but ultimately use it for their own gain. The only reason they’d been allowed to believe that was because Hydra had wanted the same thing as the Maximoffs at the time. The fall of the Avengers – the destruction of Tony Stark and his iron legion.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bucky found himself saying. Hollow words he’d gotten from Steve’s mouth, but it was the only thing he could think to fit the situation.

Wanda gave him a rueful smile, the same expression Bucky had given Steve back on the jet. _But I did it._ No matter who was in control of the strings, destruction still reigned at the hands of the puppet. It was something that most people just couldn’t understand, and they _wouldn’t_ understand it, not unless they had their freedom taken from them too. It was a fate Bucky wished on no one.

There wasn’t anything more that Bucky could say, Wanda knew it just as well as he did, but there was a relief in sharing a past trauma, of having an ear that wouldn’t judge or discriminate. Bucky was glad Wanda could find that in him, it was the least he could offer to her after all she had sacrificed to help him.  

“What did you mean,” he asked carefully, “when you said the Soldier was stopping me?”

And just like that, Wanda’s expression turned serious again. “How much do you remember of being… him?”

Bucky’s gut twisted. His hand clenched unconsciously at his side. “Sometimes all of it, sometimes none of it.” Bucky didn’t mention the headaches, nightmares or constant states of disillusionment, but by the look on Wanda’s face, she knew enough already.

She nodded slowly, understandingly. “Do you remember a time when he questioned his orders?”

Bucky nodded immediately. “He was curious. Just because he couldn’t remember didn’t stop him from asking questions. The handlers… they’d _discourage_ him.” Bucky said that word with a bitter distaste. He could feel prickles of phantom pains, bruises and scarring that had long-since healed, but would haunt him forever. “He never seemed to learn though.” Bucky smiled, shaking his head. A part of him liked to think that that had been the old him, constantly fighting, refusing to give up. But he also knew that the old him must have died eventually, swallowed whole by the machine.

“Did he ever run?”

Bucky looked to Wanda incredulously. “You mean escape?”

She nodded. “Did he try to?”

“I…” Bucky tried to think, but after spending so much time inside his own mind already, dredging up those memories felt like dragging his hands through a sea of static and incomprehensibly loud, indistinguishable noise. It hurt. Bucky rubbed his head absentmindedly, squinting. “I don’t-”

“It’s okay,” Wanda said smoothly. She lifted her hands in front of her, the digits sparking red. “May I try something?”

“I don’t have the device,” Bucky said warily. It was true, he’d handed it over to a lab tech. He hadn’t wanted to break it – one of the last rational thoughts he’d had before trying to tear a hole through the wall.

“I don’t need it,” Wanda said. “Not for this. I just want to have a look, with your permission.”

Bucky wasn’t sure what to say. Wanda wanted to find something in his head that for all he knew had been buried farther than anything she’d touched on already. This wasn’t an experiment sanctioned by T’Challa or his legion of scientists. This was the opinion of a young girl with an incredible superpower, but with no discipline, no previous knowledge on the science of the mind at all.

Even with the facts laid out in front of him so plainly, a large part of Bucky’s mind whispered _screw it._ Because, Hell, he’d put himself through a shit show already, how much worse could it get? How much more could he wind up hating himself?

He nodded, an exhausted, god-tired smile crossing his face. “Go ahead,” he said.

The next thing he saw was Wanda’s hands and then nothing but a sea of red.

 

* * *

 

“Why did you do it?”

“He’s unstable, sir, I recommend that we-”

“I want to hear it from him.”

The Asset was in a small room, steel reinforced walls, for the most part impenetrable. There was a metal desk in the centre of the room, separating the Asset from his interrogator.

The man who sat before him was tall, broad shouldered. He was bald with harrowing blue eyes and hollowed out features. Implanted information uploaded to the data port informed the Asset that this man was currently in charge of operations, that he was to be followed without question.

The Asset had questions.

“Why?” The word hurt his throat; the drugs in his system slurred the syllable.

“Yes, Soldier, why did you do it?”

Flashes of memory. The Asset had engaged in unauthorised combat with a fellow operative. Upon passing him in a corridor, the Asset had grabbed the operative by the throat with his metal appendage, crushing the man’s windpipe. He had slammed the man into a wall. Six Hydra operatives had had to pry him off. They’d sedated him. Now he was here, paying for his actions.

 _Why?_ Why had he done it? “Why did I do it?”

The man across the table prickled with frustration. The Asset should have feared the repercussions of his actions, but he couldn’t. He was too focused on the question. _His_ question. Why had he attacked a fellow operative? He couldn’t… make sense of it. It didn’t make sense.

“As I told you, sir, he is unstable. Mental Implantation must be-”

“I will not warn you again.”

“Sorry sir.”

There was a Hydra scientist in the back. Red hair, scruffy beard, unkempt suit and tie. Unremarkable, just like the Asset’s last handler. This man was smarter, though. The Asset didn’t like that.

“I don’t know why,” the Asset said finally, looking his master directly in the eye. “I don’t know why.”

The man regarded him for what felt like a century. The Asset found himself watching back with the same level of intensity. Confused. Intrigued. _Afraid?_

Finally, the man drew back from the desk, hailing to the scientist with his left hand. “Increase the wattage on the machine, burn this insubordination out of him.” He paused to give the Asset a final once-over; his expression overtly displayed his disgust. “I don’t want a repeat of this.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s eyes snapped open, the red drawing away from him in one ferocious, nearly tangible sweep.

At some point he must’ve slid to the ground, because he was crouched on the floor, back pressed tightly up against the reinforced wall. He stared widely at Wanda who shared a similar, awestruck expression. Her hands fell clumsily to her sides as the red washed out of them.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I went too deep-”

“No,” Bucky said, and he meant it. A smile was beginning to creep across his face – a half crazed grin. “That was… that was something.” He shook his head, wiping his hand over his face. It was only then that he realised he’d been crying, but these weren’t tears of sadness or of terror, they were something new. “He rebelled,” Bucky said to himself quietly, then looked to Wanda, nearly laughing out loud. “He rebelled and they tried to burn that out of him, but you found it, Wanda. _You found it!_ ”

A relieved smile crossed Wanda’s lips as she knelt down in front of him. “It’s progress,” she agreed.

 _Progress._ Bucky couldn’t’ve grinned any harder if he tried. Finally, after days of pain, turmoil and regret with little to show for it… _finally_ there was progress.

 

* * *

 

“So, the Winter Soldier beat the shit out of one of his own?” Sam made a face, nodding his approval. “Not bad.”

They were gathered on the balcony in Bucky’s room. Wanda was stood to the left of the door, Sam on the right. Steve and Bucky shared the railing.

Humid Wakandan air blew through Bucky’s hair, calming his elation to a satisfied buzz.

After coming to such a huge revelation, the first thing Bucky had wanted to do was share it with Steve. Of course, sharing it with Steve meant sharing it with Sam. The guy was a lot like getting gum stuck on your shoe, nearly impossible to shake, so why even bother trying.

“Do you think this’ll be enough?” Steve asked reluctantly.

Bucky shared a look with Wanda before shaking his head. “No,” he said honestly. “The Soldier didn’t recognise what he did, mostly, he was just confused.”

“Confusion’s not enough.” Sam nodded his understanding. “So what is? What d’you think you can find?”

Bucky shrugged. “Not sure, but there’s gotta be something. Hydra tried to burn this outta his head, there’s gotta be more.”

Bucky felt Steve tense at his side. Bucky nudged him gently, an automatic gesture.

Bucky knew what Steve was thinking, knew that his vision probably went red every time Bucky so much as mentioned what Hydra had done to him – to the Soldier – but there was no sugar coating it. Bucky had to be frank, it was the only way he could get the words out without letting his past consume him. He knew Steve got that. Didn’t mean he had to like it, of course.

“Is it safe?” Steve asked.

“Hell no,” Bucky said, grinning.

Steve supressed a smile. “Suppose is wouldn’t be.”

“No safer than jumping out a jet with no parachute.”

“You’re gonna bring that up again?”

“I oughtta bring it up anytime you ask some bullshit question like _is it safe._ ” Bucky rolled his eyes. “Since when is anything we ever do safe?”

“He’s got you there, man,” Sam said.

Steve groaned. “Don’t encourage him.”

“You guys, can we get back on topic?” Wanda asked, folding her arms. She’d been quiet up until then, and Bucky wasn’t sure whether that was just her normal stance or if she’d been rattled by the things she’d seen… or was _going_ to see.

Just like that, the dust settled and everyone fell back into place.

“So what happens?” Sam asked. “If you find that the Soldier really did break his programming in the past, how are you gonna use that to break the programming now?”

Bucky frowned. It was hard to explain the mechanics of your mind, especially when no one else thought the same way as you did. Talking to Wanda was easy, she’d already seen how his mind worked, knew every intricate detail.

He chewed his lip before saying, “T’Challa’s plan isn’t strong enough. Using that device puts me inside the Soldier’s mind set.” He shrugged his good shoulder. “Doesn’t mean I’m in the driver’s seat.”

Sam nodded slowly and Steve bumped his shoulder, so Bucky continued: “I can’t see reason when I see through the Soldier’s eyes, doesn’t matter if I remember to break free or not, I can’t, plain and simple.” Bucky pursed his lips. “But if I can remember how the Soldier felt when he refused his programming at least once, then I’ll have a link to him, I can make him see the way that I do, that way, when Wanda takes me to the trigger words, I'll be ready. I won’t have to take the wheel completely if I can just steer him in the right direction.”

Sam snorted. “That easy, huh?”

Bucky’s lip quirked. “Cakewalk.”

 

* * *

 

“You assured me that this would not happen again.”

“I know, sir, but if I could just explain-”

“There is nothing _to_ explain, you told me that you had the situation handled.”

“The ratio between stasis and implantation was misaligned, I thought-”

“ _You thought wrong._ ”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, I am well aware of that.”

“…Sir?”

The Asset watched, because there was little else for him to do.

He was strapped to the chair again, the machine a faint whir in the background. It didn’t scare him, he’d already been wiped; the pain buzzed in his head, a constant noise, but faint, ignorable. All he knew was the fresh information implanted inside of him.

The bald man was his master.

The scruffy ginger man with grey streaks in his hair was unimportant. A scientist. Disposable.

The Asset watched on in exhausted silence as his master produced a gun, cocking it towards the ginger man’s head.

The ginger man let out a broken sob, raising his hands. “Sir, p-please, I have worked for you for years, I have devoted my loyalty to this organisation.” The man changed tactics mid-speech, choking on his own breath. “I can do better, you know I can… I’ll-I’ll reconfigure my work… _please_ don’t kill me.”

The Asset didn’t understand the conversation, but he assumed it must have had something to do with him. Variables, numbers, talk of the machine… those were all things that the Asset was designed and directed by. This red haired man pushed all the buttons; it seemed he’d pushed them in the wrong order one too many times.

The Asset’s master didn’t hesitate. The scruffy ginger man could only yell his surprise as the gun deployed a fatal bullet into his skull. A perfect shot.

The Asset didn’t so much as blink. He remembered the feel of a gun in his hand, the taste of blood on his lips. He watched the scruffy man fall to the floor, brain matter and blood flooding the cracked concrete.

The Asset’s mind droned with static as his lips twitched into a smile. The red haired man had been nothing but a disappointment to their cause. A weakness. The Asset only wished he could have been the one to kill the scientist himself.

 

* * *

 

Bucky lurched from the sheets cocooning him, eyes blown wide, chest heaving his distress.

For one terrible moment, he couldn’t remember who he was.

He flinched from the sudden touch of a stranger. The unwarranted press of fingers against his back felt cold and unfamiliar. He shuddered, meaning to ward the intrusion away with the Arm. A flash of pain flared red hot as his movement jarred, his left shoulder sagging heavily to the side.

Information flooded his head.

His arm was gone. The Arm had been compromised. He was awaiting a replacement. It was 2017. He was in Wakanda. Steve was in bed next to him.

_His name was Bucky._

Bucky took a deep breath, glancing about himself. The room was dark, which shouldn’t have been a problem, but his vision was bleary, running freely like a water painting. He rubbed his eyes with his right hand, unsurprised to find his face wet with tears. He took another breath.

“It’s alright,” Bucky said uneasily when Steve remained a buzzing concern at his side. “I’m Bucky.”

The hand returned, but this time Bucky recognised it. It no longer felt cold or intrusive, like the latex gloves who’d handled his sedatives, or the rough fingers of the guards assigned to flank him. This time, it felt of Steve, soft and reassuring, gentle in all the right places. Bucky sank into that feeling, letting Steve’s touch overwhelm him as he rubbed gentle circles into Bucky’s right shoulder.

Bucky tried to relax into Steve’s touch, but the memories still clung to him. He could still see that ginger scientist crumpled in his own blood, the back of his skull blown wide open, his face slack and grey. The Asset’s emotions rolled through him like a hazy mist – a subdued kind of enjoyment at witnessing a weak link being severed, an additional eagerness at the prospect of being the face behind the trigger next time an opportunity like that arose.

Bucky’s stomach twisted as he shuffled into Steve’s embrace. Steve’s arms enveloped around him, securing the two of them together beneath the sheets. Bucky shuddered again, turning just enough so that he could press his face into Steve’s chest.

“I’ve got you,” Steve whispered, pressing a gentle kiss into Bucky’s hair. “I’m here.”

It was stupid, Bucky knew that Steve wasn’t gonna disappear on him, but there was a part of him that constantly questioned his reality – a little piece of the machine from inside the Asset that still lingered, taunting him with the idea that maybe, just maybe this was all a dream, a way to escape Hydra’s torture by imagining a more desirable dream world.

Bucky’s hand lifted instinctively. His fingers dug into Steve’s forearm, squeezing the flesh to the bone. Steve was real. Steve was here. Of _course_ he was. He was a damn idiot to think any different.

“I’m here, Buck,” Steve said again, his lips moving downwards to press against Bucky’s flesh shoulder.

The repetitive assurance eased him. Bucky nodded, focusing his attention on Steve’s heartbeat. “I’m okay,” he murmured.

Steve’s lips formed a quirked line on Bucky’s shoulder. “Liar.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’m not, that what you wanna hear?”

“’Course not.” Steve rubbed his thumb idly against Bucky’s diaphragm. “Where did you go, Buck?”

Bucky closed his eyes, only to be met with the hollowed out skull again. He swallowed thickly, opening his eyes into the darkness of Steve’s chest. “Someplace bad.”

Steve’s grip tightened slightly. “Were they hurting you?”

Bucky shook his head. “Not me. Not _him._ Someone else. They shot a scientist. A Hydra official… he just shot the guy in the head.” Bucky shrugged to himself, his gaze dimming the longer he kept his eyes open. “The Soldier was made to watch, or I guess maybe they just didn’t care enough to extract him first. He…” Bucky felt bile climb up his throat. He swallowed hastily. “He _liked_ it, Steve. I liked it.”

“That wasn’t you,” Steve said calmly, just like he’d said a thousand times. “They made you think that way.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said grimly, “it still happened, though.” He shook his head, wincing. “The Soldier believed all the lies they told him, he honest to God thought that what he was doing was _right._ He wanted to kill that scientist.” Bucky grimaced. “God I feel sick.”

“It’s alright,” Steve told him.

Bucky huffed out a laugh. “You think?”

“I know you don’t wanna see it this way,” Steve said quietly, his hands still rubbing gentle circles across Bucky’s chest, “but you were strong, Buck, think about it. Hydra… they did what they did because they couldn’t control you any other way.” Steve’s voice sounded strained, and Bucky knew it was because he was seeing every awful thing he’d read in Bucky’s file as he said it. Bucky turned fully into Steve’s arms, wrapping his hand around Steve’s back. Bucky clung to him there, too afraid to close his eyes, but just as afraid to know how Steve was gonna end his sentence.

Steve sighed. “They had to change everything about you to get you to work for them.”

A block of ice formed inside Bucky’s gut. “But I was still in there.”

“And you broke out.”

“But it was still _me._ ”

“Not you. The worst part of you, maybe, but not the man you’d ever choose to be. Not if you’d had the freedom to choose it.”

Bucky’s vision swam with tears. He blinked carefully, his hand clutching useless clumps of Steve’s shirt. “What would you do?” he asked quietly.

“Hm?” Steve hummed into his shoulder.

Bucky choked out a sigh. “If you had to face the worst part of yourself, and not just stare them down, but talk them outta some of the worst decisions of their life.” Bucky stared blankly into Steve’s chest. “’Cause the guy is you, but isn’t you at the same time. He doesn’t think like you ‘cause he believes in all the wrong stuff. But you have to make him see your side of the story, without becoming him, without letting his thoughts become yours. He’s every part of you that you hate and that makes him a lot stronger than you, but you gotta convince him you’re right. That you’re stronger.” Bucky swallowed. “How’d you do it?”

Steve was silent a long while. Bucky listened to his breathing as it rose and fell in his chest, listened to every beat of his heart like it was a goddamn church bell. Finally, Steve lifted his face from Bucky’s shoulder. “I’d show him the truth.”

Truth.

What was truth to the Asset?

Pain, torture, near lethal doses of the machine? That was truth, but it was also order, the mechanics and make-up of his whole world.

What else was truth?

That he’d been lied to, that the machine had taken out every part of him willing to fight and had replaced it with mechanical parts, a compliant robot willing to do Hydra’s bidding.

Truth.

But the Asset had never been perfect, never been as orderly as his inscrutable countenance had seemed to parade. He had flaws. But what Hydra had called flaws, Bucky called personality, rebellion, _curiosity._ Hydra had tried to burn Bucky out, but enough of him had survived to keep the Asset asking questions. They’d kept trying, but he’d kept fighting. And there was something else, something that he was missing. Something about that red haired scientist and the reason why he’d failed Hydra’s cause. Something that the Asset couldn’t remember, that _Bucky_ couldn’t remember.

Truth.

That was the truth. And Bucky couldn’t remember a damn thing about it.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky didn’t want to go back to sleep, not after what he’d seen, and Steve was more than willing to stay up with him.

Bucky spent the rest of the night huddled under Steve’s arms, the side of his face pressed into Steve’s chest. They watched shit TV on the flat screen pinned to the wall - the kind of mindless programming expected from networks at 4am – and tried to think of very little else.

It worked for a while, but Bucky couldn’t keep his thoughts of the Soldier at bay forever. He’d spent that afternoon rejuvenated by the idea that he could beat the Winter Soldier, that there was a chink in his armour that he could exploit – namely, that the Soldier had tried to rebel against his programming. But seeing into his mind for that brief period, and not just slipping back, but _seeing it, remembering_ it, experiencing it like it was happening again for the first time… Bucky realised just how far gone the Soldier really was. What if the only act of rebellion he’d ever made was the one that Bucky had already seen? What if Hydra had thoroughly burned Bucky out after that point?

Yeah, what if, what if, _what if…?_

Bucky curled closer to Steve, feeling Steve’s arms tighten around him in response. He’d planned another session with Wanda outside of T’Challa’s knowledge, one where she wouldn’t be confined to just searching through instances where he’d been programmed with the book. He didn’t have a session that was properly sanctioned until the next evening.

He’d know soon enough, he told himself. Together, he and Wanda could find anything that the Asset’s buried psyche was trying to hide.


	3. Exhaustion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo, didn't really pump this chapter out any faster, whoops. I've recently gotten very busy and have very little time to write but I'll try my best to get the next chapter out soon. Soon-ish. Ugh. Thank you so much for sticking with me.

In the coming days, Bucky lost count of how many times he reminded Wanda that she wasn’t obligated to help him. He also lost count of how many times she told him to shut his trap in response.

Most days, Bucky left the room before Steve was even up for his morning run. He’d meet Wanda in her room, they’d confer with each other briefly about what they were going to do and then they’d do it. There was no need for explanation or justification when the person you were talking to could literally see into your head. Bucky found that oddly reassuring.

The sessions were gruelling – longer than T’Challa’s without professional restrictions – and way more in depth. When he and Wanda were alone, she was given access to explore a lot more than just instances where the Soldier had been reprogrammed by the book. Alone, she could search Bucky’s mind for every mission, every training session, every altercation with every operative on Hydra’s expansive list of agents. There was no limit to what she could search for, and yet, for days they found nothing.

The Asset had been sent to Mexico City in 1957, pried open the hotel window of one Colonel Jefferson Hart. The Arm had been an older model back then, but it was still no match for the Colonel once it had been wrapped around his throat. With a brief twist, the Asset had snapped his neck. Afterwards, the Asset had returned wordlessly to his extraction point, a soothing melody of static the only sound between his ears.

In Paris, 1956, the Asset had eliminated a moving vehicle with a Hydra-issued RPG. Completely untraceable, just like all of their gadgets. That vehicle had been carrying the Algerian Peace Conference Envoy. The Asset had completed the mission with minor collateral; he’d been escorted back to base by his handlers with no complaint. A dog on a leash. Obedient. Robotic.

Cairo. 1955. The Asset had set fire to a building containing the United Nations Negotiations Team. The fire had been labelled accidental, no further probing on the matter had been deemed necessary. The Asset had left the mission with nothing but a sense of accomplishment. His handlers had praised him; the leader of that particular mission had even nodded his approval before the Asset had been escorted elsewhere. The Asset had done well; at that point the pain in his head had felt like a necessary evil. He was doing Hydra’s will. Hydra was just.

Bucky wanted to puke.

Every time Wanda fished something outta his past, it was another dead lead. Some mission he’d completed perfectly, some training session he’d acted on accordingly. The Soldier was as much a machine as Bucky had expected, but it didn’t help him.

It’d been a week. A week of nothing. Nothing but a headache.

“We’re missing something, we gotta be,” Bucky said every time, and every time Wanda responded with a grave nod.

Battling with what the machine had done to Bucky’s mind was hard for Wanda, Bucky knew that. His mind wasn’t like other people’s, she’d explained. Most people had open doors and locked doors, easy points of access and places that needed to be breached first. Bucky had doors with locks that had been melted shut. He had unbreakable safes with hardwired code for pass keys. Wanda had managed to pry open some of those doors, but for others, she might as well have been trying to break into the Pentagon. Bucky was honestly surprised she hadn’t given up already.

The sessions were beginning to add up. Between the unsanctioned ones every morning and the mandatory ones every night, Bucky was both physically and mentally exhausting himself.

The more that Wanda dug for clues, the more Bucky remembered in his sleep and the more he found himself startled awake at ungodly hours with nothing but the memory of blood stained crimes committed by the Soldier’s hands. Bucky had been lying to Steve about how much sleep he was getting, lying awake in bed for hours on end just hoping his boyfriend wouldn’t notice. Counting down the minutes until he could get up again and continue his regiment of pain.

Ironically, the exhaustion wouldn’t have bothered the Asset. The Asset had existed in a state of living exhaustion, enforced by the cryo.

Cryosleep was nothing like regular sleep; it was more like blacking out for three seconds and waking with a new imperative. The Asset had watched the world advance around him, had been implanted with new information when different technology arose. He hadn’t understood time progression or even his lack of sleep. In fact, with the mixture of adrenaline shots and unspecified drug cocktails being pumped into his system, his missions had passed in a very sharp, brightly coloured haze.

Bucky couldn’t hide it like the Soldier had and he knew that Steve was beginning to notice. Steve knew how much this meant to Bucky, though, so he’d been keeping quiet about it too, but Bucky knew he knew. He also knew that Sam knew, but that had nothing to do with subtlety.

Sam had steered him to the side after Bucky had nearly tripped in the hallway from Wanda’s room. Walking in a straight line had gotten an awful lot harder with about two hours of sleep to his name. Still, it wasn’t life threatening. Not yet.

Sam didn’t think that, though.

“You’re killing yourself for this, you know that right?”

“I’ll stop when it gets results,” Bucky gritted.

Sam glared at him. “Do you even know how crazy that sounds?”

_Probably._ Bucky shrugged, leaning his shoulder against the wall for support. “You didn’t think it was crazy a week ago.”

“Yeah,” Sam deadpanned, “when I thought it’d work.”

Bucky’s lip twitched into a smile. “Don’t anymore, huh?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you’ll figure it out before you seriously mess yourself up trying.” He shoved Bucky’s chest. “Trust me, I know people like you. I’ve worked missions with your better half for two years.”

Bucky shook his head. He was tired, sure, but he wasn’t about to kill himself over this. He just needed more time, time he didn’t have, _fine,_ but he could work with that. He needed to find the Soldier’s weak link, he needed the answer to why that scientist had been shot. The Soldier had done something, he’d broken out of line enough to get someone killed for the mistake in his coding. Bucky couldn’t overlook that. Sam might not understand that, but Sam wasn’t in charge. Hell, Sam was just there for support. Support that Bucky didn’t need.

All Bucky said out loud was, “I need to do this.” ‘Cuz, fuck, he was tired.

Sam dragged a hand over his face. “Y’know what? Fine. I’ll give you another week to find what you need to find, but after that, I’m telling T’Challa.”

Bucky should’ve felt something about that, but his exhaustion was winning out. His vision was failing him as was the majority of his body. The Soldier might have been used to running on no sleep, but he’d been fuelled by drugs and very little memory to go on. It was easy to concentrate when you couldn’t even remember your own damn name. With all Bucky knew now, it was a miracle he hadn’t collapsed on the spot.

Bucky nodded, because he couldn’t fight this, could barely keep his gaze pinpointed on Sam’s face.

“Alright then.” Sam nodded stiffly, half-raising his arm. “Mind if I help you to your room? You look so pitiful I might cry.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but let Sam grab his shoulder.

On their way, Bucky made extra sure to _stumble_ a few times into the wall, just so he could trip Sam in the process. By the time they made it to his room, Bucky was feeling pretty damn proud of himself, although, that might have been the sleep deprivation talking.

Steve wasn’t there when they showed up, which left Bucky feeling a little hollow inside. He was probably still in the gym or one of the numerous other places inside the facility. Hell, he might be outside for all Bucky knew. It wasn’t like _Steve_ was being forced to stay cooped up like an animal until he had a better grip on his sanity. Bucky resisted the urge to shake his head; he knew that T’Challa was doing all of this for his safety, but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter how much breathing room he was given, he still had chains.

Bucky stumbled into the room more or less out of his control. It took him a few seconds to realise that Sam had steered him inside. And was still holding onto him. Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Where you wanna go?” Sam asked, gesturing to the bed and then towards the table and chairs.

It occurred to Bucky that Sam really wasn’t going anywhere. It didn’t matter that Bucky could handle himself on his own, if Steve wasn’t there, Sam didn’t trust him not to get himself killed.

Bucky chanced a glance at his bed. Even with the mattress as undesirably soft as it was, the bed was a dangerous place to be. In the state Bucky was in, it would be far too easy for him to fall asleep, but after the morning he’d had and with the memories Wanda had resurfaced just minutes beforehand, he knew what kind of nightmares lay ahead. Bucky swallowed, nodding towards the chairs.

Sam guided him wordlessly to the table, only letting go when he was sure Bucky wouldn’t fall over backwards in his seat. Bucky leant his one good arm on the table, cradling his chin in his hand. A heaviness had begun to set in his body, making his peripheral blur. No amount of caffeine would fix this kinda bone tired, but he didn’t have another option.

“You eating proper food now?”

Bucky was startled from his stupor long enough to acknowledge Sam. He was standing by the desk beneath the TV, prodding at one of the few remaining protein bars on the silver tray.

Bucky raised his head, nodding slowly. “Since last week.”

Sam smiled. “T’Challa gave you the protein bars of doom too, huh?” He wrinkled his nose. “Man those things are nasty. Taste worse than cardboard. They work pretty damn well, but man, at what cost?”

That afforded a small chuckle from Bucky, Sam grinned.

He lifted one of the protein bars away in his hand, examining it before pointing it at Bucky offhandedly. “I’ll give the king this though, his kitchen is a damned _godsend_. I feel like serving really makes you appreciate good food when you actually get it, y’know?”

Bucky did know, but he also knew that the question was rhetorical. It was easy to see what Sam was doing, and he was grateful for the distraction.

Sam continued, “That and my ma, now _that’s_ a woman who knows how to make a good home cooked meal, and don’t even get me started on her dessert recipes, you haven’t lived ‘til you try one of her chocolate chip cookies.”

Sam kept talking and Bucky continued to listen.

Listening to Sam was effortless; he knew exactly how to guide a one-sided conversation in a way that could include two people. Maybe doing all those speeches for the VA had improved his skills, maybe it was just natural talent, Bucky didn’t care, he was just grateful that he had something to do ‘sides passing out.

People like Sam and Steve, Hell, pretty much anyone who had once brandished the name _Avenger,_ they knew what real nightmares were. Still, they’d lived with them a lot longer than Bucky had and some of them had even found ways to overcome them in that time. But Bucky was still new to having a mind of his own, let alone a catalogue of all of his worst moments ready to access at any moment he so much as closed his eyes.

So yeah, of course Sam knew exactly why Bucky couldn’t sleep, that’s why he’d elected another method. It was simple – keep Bucky animated, keep him listening. It was easier to ignore the strain of exhaustion if you had something to focus on. Bucky smiled to himself; maybe Sam’s ‘support’ wasn’t as untoward as he’d first thought.

When topics for conversation ran dry, Sam turned to the TV for support, he even ordered room service. Bucky knew Sam just wanted to make sure that he was really eating, not putting that off as well as some kind of masochistic addition to his no-sleep rule. While they ate, Sam gave a smart-ass running commentary on everything that happened on screen, just to make sure that Bucky was still listening. It was entertaining to say the least.

By the time Steve returned, it was almost time for Bucky’s _authorised_ session. Bucky wasn’t exactly excited about it, finding nothing in the morning left him with very little enthusiasm for what he assumed would be an even less productive evening. Still, he remained hopeful, it was all he had left to hold onto.

Steve helped Bucky to the elevator with Sam trailing behind. The guard’s presence in the elevator helped keep Bucky alert, but he knew his grip was slipping. His vision threatened to tunnel every time he blinked or looked up too quickly, he was beginning to see extra layers to objects, like secondary shadows. When they finally exited on their floor, Steve paused by the door, signalling for Sam to go ahead.

Bucky felt Steve’s grip on his arm tighten as he was whisked to the side of the hallway.

“You don’t have to do this tonight if you don’t wanna,” Steve said cautiously, swiping a curtain of hair from Bucky’s face. “We can tell T’Challa you aren’t up to it, he’ll understand.”

“No,” Bucky said firmly, grabbing Steve’s wrist before he could pull away. “I can’t afford to miss one.”

Steve looked as though he was going to argue, but instead he snapped his mouth shut, shaking his head. “I figured you’d say that.”

“Not gonna fight me on this?” Bucky playfully tightened his hold on Steve’s wrist.

Steve held Bucky’s gaze firmly, his blue eyes practically sparkling with their certainty. Bucky’s mouth opened slightly as their gazes locked.

Then, Steve smiled. “Nope,” he said, wriggling his wrist free of Bucky’s grip, he threaded his fingers through Bucky’s hand instead, squeezing it gently. “You might run yourself into the dirt, but I’m gonna be right here to pick you up and outta it.” Steve rolled his eyes. “Maybe then you’ll see how much of a punk you’re being.”

“Aw.” Bucky smiled, pressing a kiss against Steve’s knuckles. “You say the sweetest things.”

 

* * *

 

The testing lab was an unforgiving place for various reasons, the first and foremost being that the only piece of furniture in the room served as a visual trigger to some of Bucky’s worst memories.

Steve could stay with Bucky for a while, but he was always ushered away several minutes before the procedure began. The isolation of the lab’s four walls would have been enough to drive Bucky mad was it not for Wanda; she always made the process a lot less daunting. She meditated beforehand, reaching the lab a good thirty minutes before she was needed to ensure that her powers were ready for the task.

But when Steve and Bucky arrived, Wanda wasn’t there.

And, as Bucky’s tired eyes scoped the rest of the room, he realised that most of the usual lab coats were missing too. Only a few scientists remained, and none of them seemed to be working to prep the room at all. Even Sam wasn’t there.

Bucky felt Steve tense at his side. This wasn’t the usual order of things. Something was wrong. Bucky dipped his head - ignoring the heaviness in his skull – and kept track of every person he could detect.

That was when the door to the observation room opened.

T’Challa nodded to them from the doorway, his posture imposing beneath the integrated frame. “Captain Rogers, Mr Barnes, with me please.”

Neither of them argued, but Steve caught Bucky’s eyes as they moved and a silent message passed between them. They both knew what to do if things went south, no matter what state Bucky was in, he always had that plan memorised.

 

* * *

 

“Where’s Wanda?” Bucky asked the second the door closed behind them.

“I told her that her services would not be needed today,” T’Challa replied smoothly, arms folded calmly over his chest. “I believe that she is in her room.”

The tightness in Bucky’s chest elevated somewhat. He nodded stiffly. “Why?”

T’Challa’s gaze hardened. “Captain Rogers,” he said, turning his attention to Steve, “may I speak with Mr Barnes alone?”

Steve looked to Bucky and just like before, a whole conversation passed between them without a word needing to be uttered out loud. Steve didn’t want to leave Bucky alone, and Bucky wasn’t thrilled about it either, but he also wanted to know what T’Challa had to say and –honestly – he already had a pretty good hunch about what it was gonna be.

Steve gave a small nod. He ran his hand down from Bucky’s flesh shoulder, coming to a rest at his fingers, giving them a tight reassuring squeeze.

“See you in fifteen,” Steve said.

Bucky winked, an attempt to dislodge the tension. “Make that ten.”

It seemed to work, Steve forced a half smile before turning to leave, although Bucky didn’t miss the stern look he threw T’Challa’s way. Steve was nothing but the pinnacle of politeness when it came to addressing royalty, but that went out the window when said royalty was holding his boyfriend hostage. Bucky tried to ignore the swell of butterflies that ignited in his stomach. Instead he swallowed, leaning his back against the far wall.

A short silence passed between Bucky and the king before T’Challa cleared his throat.

“I know you do not think of me as blind, Mr Barnes.”

A rush of air left Bucky’s mouth in a half surprised chuckle. So it _was_ what he’d suspected.

T’Challa might have deactivated the cameras in the living quarters a while back, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been watching them. He was as swift and cunning as his cat suit demanded, after all, and Bucky knew that. He’d just wanted to see how long it’d take.

“I know,” Bucky said, shrugging indifferently. “But you let me do it.”

T’Challa gave Bucky a steady, unimpressed look. The kind of look your mother gave you when you turned up on the front doorstep, the collar of your shirt clenched in your next door neighbour’s fist. He raised one eyebrow. “I was willing to ignore your decline to a certain level. That level has passed.”

Bucky snorted. “Thought as much.” Any time longer than this and T’Challa would have been addressing a passed out husk on the floor.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I’m always exhausted.”

“Bucky.” Bucky froze. T’Challa was looking at him, eyebrows pulled together, a look of concern so deeply etched onto his features you would have thought it had been drilled there. “This is not healthy. I understand that you want to make progress, but-”

“I haven’t been making progress,” Bucky shot back. “Why’d you think I started doing this in the first place? ‘Cause I _like_ it?”

T’Challa had the decency to look affronted. “That is not what I-”

“Cut the shit, your majesty, I know exactly what you meant.” Maybe he should have picked his words more wisely when addressing royalty, but fuck it, he was tired, his head hurt and to top it all off, T’Challa was pissing him the Hell off. Bucky gritted his teeth, looking the king squarely in his eyes. “Lemme spell it out for you. Your way wasn’t working, Stark’s tech only gets half the job done. I go back, I’m sat in the Soldier’s head; no controls, no steering wheel. I just get to feel what he feels again. Wanna know what that is?”

T’Challa didn’t get a chance to respond, because Bucky only continued his rant, listing each thing off on his fingers. “Pain, confusion, static, he doesn’t know how to feel much else. They _made_ him that way, and I can’t make him do much else ‘cept respond exactly how I did every time they used that goddamn machine on me. Wanna know why?” Bucky smiled sharply. “Because he _wants it._ And if I keep going back, feelin’ the way that he feels, I ain’t ever gonna make any goddamn progress. Y’know how I will? If I go back further. Not into the chair, not after they’ve wiped him into a fucking vegetable; I need to go back to when he _actually_ rebelled, to his missions, to the time between the chair. ‘Cause he rebelled. I know he did.”

Bucky slumped back against the wall, his breath coming out in sharp, heavy pants. He had to look upwards, blinking in rapid succession just to keep spots from forming in his eyes. Turns out overexertion was bad when you hadn’t slept – even in the form of angry rants. Who knew?

T’Challa remained silent for a long time. He brought a hand up to his chin, regarding Bucky with a quizzical, though thoughtful expression.

Finally, T’Challa sighed. “You’re certain this will work?”

Bucky knocked the back of his head against the wall once, just to wake himself up. “No,” he said shortly, “but it’s all I got going for me, so I’m gonna do all it takes to find it. I’m gonna find the old me inside this mess and when I do I’m gonna use it to finally get rid of those goddamn trigger words.”

A half smile formed on T’Challa lips. He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Bucky lifted his head from the wall. “That’s all you gotta say?”

T’Challa shrugged, his smile growing larger. “You make an interesting point, one that not I or any of my colleagues managed to put together. So, okay.”

Bucky blinked, T’Challa’s words finally clicking into place. He shook his head. “You’ll let me keep doin’ this?”

“On one condition,” T’Challa said sternly.

“Name it.”

“From now on, these _extra_ sessions will be considered mandatory and will be monitored as such. They will replace your time in the chair significantly until we can make any further progress. You will receive medical reviews before and after every session and if my scientists conclude that you are not of a fit mental state to receive the session, you will not be allowed to continue until you have given your body and mind the proper rest it deserves.”

Bucky’s lips twisted into a rueful smile. “And how the Hell do I do that?”

T’Challa’s eyes flashed with something before he moved to the desk at the far wall, now significantly cleaner than the last time Bucky had seen it.

“I’m glad you asked,” T’Challa said.

Bucky watched in exhausted intrigue as T’Challa fiddled with the desk, pulling open one of its drawers to produce a small, unmarked pill bottle. Bucky could already feel a deep, regrettable sigh forming in his throat.

“What’s that?” he asked.

T’Challa fiddled with the bottle, taking casual strides over to Bucky’s position. “Prazosin,” he said, before pausing. “Well, a variation of it. Significant changes had to be made to accommodate the biological differences in your system. It was intended to treat high blood pressure, but one unusual effect of the drug was that it could reduce nightmares, making it an effective treatment for those who suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Bucky eyed the bottle warily. “So I’m your guinea pig? Or you meaning to tell me you’ve been giving this stuff out to genetically modified rodents.”

T’Challa sighed. “It’s true that the side effects are… unclear. It is why we did not want to tell you unless your health became a concern. Maintaining a low dosage should reduce the chances of side effects, but they are known to cause nausea, dizziness and heart palpitations.”

“Sounds wild.”

T’Challa chuckled. “I thought you might see it that way. Nonetheless, it is your choice and your choice alone whether you take them, although I know the lab would insist you give them one trial night at the very least.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I bet they do.” He gave the unmarked pill bottle one more once over before shrugging his good shoulder. “I’ll do it.”

T’Challa extended the pills towards Bucky’s outstretched hand. “Are you sure?”

Bucky grimaced. “Your majesty, I’ll take just about anything to get a good night’s rest.”

T’Challa smiled. “Then we have an agreement.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky found Steve and Sam waiting impatiently out in the hallway.

The second Bucky opened the door, he heard Sam heave a sigh of relief. “Finally,” he said as Steve kicked himself from the wall. “What the Hell was all that about?”

Bucky shrugged. “Not much,” he cocked his head, “‘cept your conniving plan to rat me out just hit a snag.”

Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. “He knows?”

“He knew the whole time,” Bucky said, sharing a knowing look with Steve. They’d both discussed the matter behind closed doors, Hell, they’d even made jokes about it. Bucky’s favourite scenario was imagining T’Challa storming into the room fully dressed in his cat suit. Turns out the truth of the matter was a lot less funny.

“What did he say?” Steve asked, stepping aside to give Bucky room in the narrow hall. Once Bucky had a spot to lean on, Steve sidled his way back, brushing his arm against Bucky’s. It took every remaining effort Bucky had not to give in to his exhaustion and collapse then and there into Steve’s side.

Instead, Bucky reached into his pocket for the pill pot. Once he had it, he lifted it towards his face, shaking the contents. “Meds,” Bucky said. “They’re s’posed to help me sleep. If I take ‘em, T’Challa will let us continue what we were doing.” He rolled his eyes. “As long as his scientists can keep watch.”

“Shit,” Sam said, rubbing his jaw. “How the Hell did you catch a deal like that?”

Bucky’s gaze phased out as he thought back to the conversation. He grimaced. “By saying a lotta stuff I could probably get quartered for.”

That made Sam laugh. He glanced to Steve, then to Bucky. “Man, you two are a match made in Heaven, y’know that?”

 

* * *

 

Bucky wasn’t much thrilled about being back under the inscrutable gazes of a dozen scientists, but he couldn’t deny one thing – the pills were working.

Bucky didn’t know the science behind them – T’Challa had said something about changing the chemistry in his brain, but between his lack of sleep and the intense inability to _care_ that came along with that, it hadn’t made a lick of sense to him. Steve had rehashed it later as best as he could explain – which wasn’t _much –_ and Bucky had understood that a little better. From what he could make of it, the pills made it a lot harder for him to get bad dreams, because his brain was actively telling them to fuck off. Kinda like a dream catcher, but with science. Bucky liked that analogy, so he stuck with it.

He’d been getting more sleep than he had been in weeks, which made getting up in the morning a much harder task. Steve had been trying to motivate Bucky with early morning runs through the facility’s indoor track, but if there was one thing a healthy amount of rest had taught Bucky, it was that he was _not_ a morning person.

Sam had offered coffee as an unhealthy alternative to exercise. Bucky was starting to like Sam a lot more these days. Didn’t get him off the hook for the run, as much as he tried, but at least Sam got dragged into the work-out too, and it always felt good leaving him behind in a trail of dust.

All in all, Bucky was feeling a lot better. That was, of course, until it came back to his once daily schedule in the chair.

T’Challa tried his best not to rule over this session like he had the last. Stark’s tech wasn’t in use until Bucky had a reason to believe that he was ready to break the triggers, so really T’Challa’s monitoring was purely for scientific purposes. That and his own concern for Bucky’s well-being. Still, Bucky knew it affected Wanda’s concentration being monitored like some kind of machine. Now that Wanda was the only thing inside of Bucky’s head, a lot of T’Challa scientists had been taking more notice of her, overtly discussing her and taking notes.

By the third day, Bucky finally confronted T’Challa about it, urging the king to tell his goons to take their notes elsewhere, preferably into the sound proof observation booth where they couldn’t be seen or heard. It helped with Wanda’s nerves considerably, but Bucky knew she was still being more restrictive with her power.

Days went by without much change. That was until the end of the second week.

Morale had begun to run low again by that point, which only made Bucky’s confusion more profound when he was awoken at 3am by frantic knocking on his door.

Years of hiding in wait for Hydra’s tentacles to reclaim him had made Bucky painfully aware of even the slightest change to his surroundings, which was why he was up and out of bed before Steve could even stir next to him.

Rational thought kicked in about halfway to the door. He was in a highly secure building off the radar to any of his known enemies, not to mention the building was currently housing the king of Wakanda. If there was something big happening, his door would have been kicked down already, that or an alarm would have sounded. Since neither of those things had happened, Bucky realised he could count the list of suspects on his one and only hand.

His money had been on Sam, which was why he was surprised to find Wanda on the other side of the door. Her hair was in disarray, her eyes were wide, and only widened further when Bucky answered the door. Perhaps she hadn’t expected him to, or maybe she just hadn’t expected him to only be wearing pyjama pants, and thank Christ he was, he did _not_ want to put mentally scarring a psychic teenager on his list of despicable acts he’d committed in the last seventy years.

Wanda’s hand was still clenched in the air, as if she was ready to knock on the door that no longer existed in front of her. From behind him, Bucky heard Steve mumble, “Who is it?”

Bucky smiled sympathetically. “Hey Wanda, wanna come in?”

It took Wanda a while to calm down from whatever epiphany she’d had at 3am. Steve offered her water, Bucky offered her coffee, but she only shook her head, seating herself at the table and chairs that had become a sort of sacred ground for late night mental breaks. She ran her hands through her tangled hair before taking a breath.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured before looking up, first to Bucky, then to Steve. “For disturbing you both.”

“It’s fine,” Steve and Bucky said together. Bucky squeezed Steve’s arm. “But,” he said, “why did you?”

Wanda took a rattled breath. “I thought of something.”

Steve glanced at Bucky worriedly. Bucky shrugged. They both turned back to Wanda, seating themselves across from her at the table.

“Take all the time you need,” Steve said.

It turned out she didn’t need that much time at all.

“I was thinking,” Wanda blurted, “that I had been trying to look into parts of your mind that were open to me. Like the doors. Do you remember?”

Bucky nodded, it felt like a dozen butterflies had just hatched inside his stomach. “Yeah, you said most of mine were locked pretty damn tight.”

Wanda nodded. “Exactly, and I had… I had overlooked that. I focused on the memories I could easily access, I was excited by anything new that I could find.” She frowned. “But it was stupid, I should have seen it.”

Bucky’s arm prickled. “Seen what?”

Wanda swallowed nervously, looking to Bucky with wide, exhaustion bruised eyes. “There is a gap… a significant one. Your first field test was in nineteen fifty four, wasn’t it?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah…”

Wanda smiled, her hands clenched together on the table in front of her. “You had several missions throughout the fifties, but then the next mission I find after that is maybe a decade later.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think that was important at the time, I assumed you had been in the ice, that the door led to darkness… but do you remember when the Soldier’s master killed that Hydra scientist?”

Bucky frowned. “Not the date… he was only given those for missions.”

Wanda nodded. “Yes, but the first time you _saw_ the scientist, when he was in that interrogation room with you. He had aged a few years by the time he was killed. Maybe ten years?”

Bucky gaped. “You’re kidding.”

Steve had been listened quietly alongside him, but Bucky could detect the change in his demeanour, it was impossible to ignore. He was just as excited by what Wanda was saying as Bucky was.

Wanda laughed, a tired laugh, but a laugh all the same. “I think it was in that ten year gap that the Soldier disobeyed his orders, it was at the end of those ten years that the scientist was killed.” She nodded slowly, pursing her lips. “If I can focus on that time and nothing else, I think I can open that door. It will take time, but I can do it.”

Bucky’s mouth refused to close. Steve clapped an arm around his back, pulling him into his side. Bucky was numb for a few seconds before he finally accepted the embrace. He shook his head incredulously. “Forget the coffee, d’you want something stronger?”


End file.
